Utah Personal Injury FAQ
Utah’s civil courts provide a means of legal redress for victims of personal injuries. The court allows injury victims to seek financial compensation for injuries caused by another party’s negligence. If you’ve suffered an injury, you may have questions about your rights under Utah’s personal injury laws. Answers to the following frequently asked questions may help.
What Is a “Personal Injury” under Utah Law?
In civil courts, an “injury” can refer to a non-physical injury such as damage to a reputation. When the court refers to a “personal injury” it means physical and emotional injury to your person.
An injury victim may pursue a personal injury claim if their injury directly resulted from another person or business entity’s negligence. Negligence can mean carelessness, recklessness, or intentional wrongdoing.
What Are the Most Common Personal Injury Claims in Utah?
Most personal injury claims stem from one party’s careless actions that directly cause injury to another. Common personal injury claims in Utah include the following:
- Car accidents
- Truck accidents
- Motorcycle accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Bicycle accidents
- Workplace injuries
- Slip-and-fall accidents
- Dog bites
- Defective product claims
Negligence is the basis of most of the above personal injury cases, but in some claims, such as defective product claims, strict liability applies, meaning an injury victim doesn’t have to prove a manufacturer’s negligence.
A wrongful death claim is also a personal injury claim pursued by a close family member after the death of a loved one due to negligence.
What Are “Damages” in a Personal Injury Claim?
The word “damages” refers to the consequences of an injury to the victim. Utah personal injury law divides this into two categories, economic and non-economic damages. Economic damages are tangible and easy to calculate by adding up medical bills, out-of-pocket expenses, and lost income. Non-economic damages are intangible and more difficult to quantify but consequential to the victim, including pain and suffering and emotional injuries.
What Compensation Is Available in a Personal Injury Claim?
The compensation an injury victim receives is a specified amount of money for each category of their damages. What they recover depends on the individual circumstances of their case and the economic and non-economic damages they suffered. Common examples include:
- Reimbursement for medical expenses
- Anticipated future medical costs
- Out-of-pocket expenses
- Lost wages
- Future income loss
- Diminished future earning capacity due to disability
- Pain and suffering
- Other non-economic damages that apply in individual cases like PTSD, loss of limb, loss of one of the senses, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life, or diminished quality of life.
What Is the Process of a Personal Injury Claim?
After receiving medical care, an injury victim gathers their medical report and any other evidence such as an accident report, photographs, and the names of eyewitnesses, and calls a personal injury lawyer—preferably before speaking to any insurance adjusters who sometimes quickly offer lowball settlements.
The attorney investigates the case, gathers evidence of liability, calculates the victim’s damages, and sends a demand package to the appropriate insurance company. For example, an auto insurance company after a car accident, or a property liability insurer after a slip-and-fall.
Typically a period of negotiations and mediation occurs before the victim, their attorney, and the insurance company agree on a settlement. If they don’t agree, the case proceeds to a lawsuit in court to seek a jury award for damages.
How Likely Is It That My Case Will Go to Court?
Nearly 95% of personal injury claims in Utah and elsewhere are resolved outside of court through a settlement from the insurance company. If your case does require litigation in court, your attorney will ensure that you are well-prepared for the process. Court cases take longer to resolve, but they often result in an amount that’s larger than a settlement.
How Much Do I Have to Pay for a Personal Injury Lawyer in Utah?
Most personal injury attorneys do not charge prospective clients for their initial consultation and take no upfront fees. Instead, they work on a contingency-based payment system so they only get paid after they secure a settlement or win the case in court. Then, they take a percentage of the compensation as their fee. Most personal injury lawyers charge 20-35%.
What If I Am Partly at Fault for an Accident?
Utah uses a modified comparison negligence law for injury compensation. Under this rule, even if an injury victim contributed to the accident or injury, they can still recover a portion of their damages as long as they were less than 50% at fault. Their percentage of fault is subtracted from their compensation. For example, if a claim’s value is $100,000 but the injury victim was 25% at fault, they’d recover $75,000.
What If the Insurance Company Says I Was Partly At Fault But I Wasn’t?
Comparison negligence systems incentivize insurance companies to assign fault to injury victims so they can reduce the amount they have to pay them. An assertive Utah personal injury lawyer will counteract these tactics whenever possible by gathering evidence of the other party’s liability and making a compelling case for the maximum compensation.
How Long Do I Have to File a Personal Injury Claim in Utah?
Like all states, Utah places time limits or statutes of limitations on legal action, including personal injury cases. This helps ensure that evidence is available and eyewitness testimony is reliable if a case goes to court. The statute of limitations for filing a personal injury lawsuit in Utah is four years from the date the injury occurred or four years from the date of its discovery. Injury victims who are minors when an injury occurs have up to four years after their 18th birthday to file a claim.
How Does a Lawyer Prove Liability In a Personal Injury Case?
Meeting the legal threshold of liability requires an attorney to prove the following:
- The at-fault party owed a duty of care to others, such as a driver’s duty to follow traffic laws or a property owner’s duty to repair a broken floorboard
- They breached this duty through negligence
- Their breach of duty directly caused the injury
- The injury victim suffered damages from the injury
Proving liability for a Utah medical malpractice claim is a little different. In that case, an attorney must prove that a doctor/patient relationship existed, the medical provider had a duty to treat the patient at the standard of care accepted by the medical community, they breached that duty, the breach caused the patient’s injury, and the patient suffered damages from the injury.
Ask an Attorney
Because personal injury lawyers in Utah offer free consultations, scheduling a consultation is the best way to get answers to questions pertaining to your unique case.